


give up the ghosts

by SugarFey



Category: The Expanse (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:27:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24537706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SugarFey/pseuds/SugarFey
Summary: After she leaves Medina Station, Drummer has too much time to think.
Relationships: Camina Drummer/Naomi Nagata
Comments: 19
Kudos: 32





	give up the ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> So, 2020 sure has been quite a year. I started writing this fic during the virus lockdown. The feeling of isolation got me thinking about how it would feel to be traveling on a spaceship for days, possibly weeks or months, so I expanded on some older prompt fics. Call this my 'quarantine processing' fic.
> 
> Thanks, as always, to my amazing beta. :)
> 
> Warnings: mentions of canon injuries.

The paradox of Belter life is that you either spend your life surrounded by too many people or none at all. Drummer has not had much time to appreciate this fact. The first time she shipped out from Ceres she slept in the crew quarters with six other people and had a narrow bunk and a tiny storage locker which she shared with the girl above her. She had considered herself fortunate at the time. On some rockhopper ships the crew were so tight for space they would share bunks in shifts. Her privacy had increased as she rose through the ranks. On Medina she had quarters all to herself; a bunk and a bathroom and even a small counter with a kettle, but always with the knowledge that she was surrounded by people.

It isn’t until the shuttle leaves the ring space that she realises she is truly alone for the first time in years. This shuttle will take her through the black with enough fuel and rations to get her to the nearest station, but not much further. The exterior screens show nothing but the vast emptiness of space.

She slows the drive to conserve fuel and unclips her harness. Her body bobs upwards and she stretches out her arms, letting herself drift in the cradle of zero-G. She could dive or turn flips if she wants, like the kids do to amuse themselves on long hauls. She could play all the old hit songs from Ceres and sing along at the top of her lungs. No one would know.

She cringes as soon as that thought enters her head. Solitude or no, she has to maintain some dignity. Still, her eyes close as she leans back, carried on the hum of air filters and the steady beeps of monitors.

The notification alert is a shock, and she almost hits her head in her attempt to stabilise her mag boots against the deck. Naomi’s face flickers onto the screen and Drummer’s heart flickers with it. Naomi has rings under her eyes and an old cut on her cheek, but she is breathing. She is alive.

Drummer’s eyes flick to the corner of the screen. Fifteen second delay. She knocks her spine in her rush to strap herself in and hopes her gritted teeth aren’t visible when she accepts the call.

“Camina?” Naomi’s voice is raised. “We came to Medina. They said you left. Where are you?”

“In a shuttle, bound for the next station.” Drummer waits, counting the moments until she sees Naomi heave a small sigh of relief.

“Do you want to talk about what happened?” Naomi says.

Drummer’s nonchalance is feigned to the verge of being pathetic. “Not much to say. Got sick of playing cop for Inners’ wants.”

“That can’t be all.” Of course, Naomi is not fooled.

“It is, for now.” Drummer raises her hands in a shrug for emphasis and hopes Naomi takes the hint. A frown appears on Naomi’s forehead a few seconds later, but she does not comment.

“Come to the Roci,” Naomi says. “You’ll be fucked if that shuttle breaks down out here. We can take you wherever you want to go.” Naomi’s eyes soften. “We can give you a cabin to yourself. If you’d prefer to be alone.”

Come to the Roci. Naomi makes it sound so simple. Come to the Roci, the ship owned by James fucking Holden and whoever those other Inners are, so close to Naomi and yet apart.

She waits so long to respond that Naomi’s face turns worried through the delay.

Much as it grates on Drummer to admit it, the practicality of Naomi’s suggestion wins out. “Okay,” she sighs. “Just to the next station. Send me your coordinates.”

The screen flickers with static. She hopes Naomi can see her smile.

* * *

It had seemed like a good idea at the time. That is, until the hatch opens on the _Roci_ and Holden himself strides towards her with a broad smile, extending his hand. “Welcome aboard the _Rocinante,”_ he says.

Drummer stares at him. He waits in front of her, hand outstretched, until the silence turns awkward and he brings his arm back to his side. “Naomi should be down in a moment,” he mumbles, rubbing the back of his neck.

To make matters worse, the Martian pilot arrives. Alex or Adam or whatever his name is. “Hey!” he exclaims in a tone which could only be described as ‘jolly.’ “Great to have you on board. We’ve got some flexibility in the flight plan, so we can take you anywhere you want to go. Ceres, Tycho Station, you can check in with your pal, Fred—“

“Drummer!” Naomi enters the airlock and saves the pilot from being on the receiving end of Drummer’s fist. “I’ll show you to your bunk.”

Naomi is a smart woman. Drummer heaves her pack onto her back and follows her wordlessly. The bunk Naomi leads her to is slightly bigger than the average crew bunk aboard a rockhopper ship, but still comfortingly small. The spacious quarters aboard the Medina always made her feel too exposed, too guilty for taking up the space of others.

She places the pack into the locker and sits down gingerly on the bunk bed. Naomi leans against the opposite wall. “How’s your back doing?”

“Fine,” Drummer grunts. “Will be better in zero-G.”

“We’ve got painkillers in the med bay if you need them. Help yourself.” Naomi smiles softly. “I know you won’t ask for them. But they’re there.”

Drummer nods and tries not to show how grateful she feels. The mattress beside her dips as Naomi sits down. “Do you know where you want to go now?”

Drummer tries to shrug, but gravity pulls against her healing nerves and she gives up with a grimace. “Shipyard on Titan. Got some credits saved up. See how I go from there.”

“Well.” Naomi’s thumb rubs Drummer’s shoulder blade and she allows herself to lean into the touch, just a bit. “You’ve got time now to figure that out. Long trip from here to Titan. But now…” Naomi stands and Drummer feels the loss in her chest. Naomi holds out her hand to her. “Come to the galley. Alex is making a welcome lasagne.”

Drummer throws her an incredulous look. “I don’t even know what that is.”

“Oh, you will.”

“I immediately regret this decision,” Drummer mutters, folding her arms.

Naomi rolls her eyes, but there is a laugh in her voice when she speaks. “I’ll bring you something. But don’t think you’re getting out of having dinner with us for the whole trip.”

The ease with which Naomi speaks of her crew stings, but the growling in Drummer’s stomach is enough to overpower it. “Fine.”

The lasagne, when it arrives, is edible enough, if a bit tasteless. Naomi wordlessly passes her the chilli powder and for the first time in weeks, Drummer has to stifle a laugh. Naomi does know her well.

* * *

Drummer does not remember the last time she spent this many hours in her bunk, staring at the ceiling, with no duties or responsibilities beyond trying to sort out the mess of her own thoughts.

She has been fighting for her entire life. As a child, she got into scraps with the other kids in the overcrowded Ceres slum in which she was born. Her mother had rented a tiny box of a room above a noodle shop on the medina level. The smell of old cooking oil would cling to the walls, adding to the general stench of too many unwashed bodies crammed into the poorly ventilated station. The owner would dump a vat of unsold noodles out the front at closing time and the kids would squabble over who got to fill up their containers with food to bring home.

As a teenager, she fought for survival. Took on the biggest, meanest assholes on the loading docks and brought them to their knees with a well-aimed kick to the groin. The tiny room was hers alone after her mother died, until the Earther mining corporation raised the rent on the living spaces and she could no longer afford to pay for it. She stayed in one friend’s home after another, trying to scratch out a living for herself.

She was barely nineteen when she joined the OPA; caught up in a rush of anger, idealism and a thirst for a life beyond the docks. Back then, she never expected to see her thirtieth birthday. What would that girl think if she saw her like this now?

Probably punch her in the jaw and call her a traitor to the cause. It may even serve her right.

The lights on this fucking Martian ship are so bright, they burn her eyes. She slides out of the bunk and arranges herself on the floor for a forearm plank. Might as well work her abdominals if she’s going to be wallowing in self-pity.

She has moved on to push ups by the time the door slides open, letting a puff of air chill the sweat on her skin. Naomi stands on the threshold, toolbox in hand. Drummer bends her knees and gets to her feet with what she hopes is a decent display of ease. Naomi, judging from the smile playing at the corners of her lips, remains unconvinced.

Even that mere hint of a smile is enough to stir a flutter in Drummer’s belly. _Damn it_.

“Get some sleep?” Naomi asks.

“Some. How do you rest with the air filters being so _pashang_ quiet?

“You get used to it.” Naomi sets down the toolbox and leans against the bulkhead. She is only an arm length away. Drummer could…

“One of the comm relays has been acting up.” Naomi’s voice is brisk, business-like. As if she were in Drummer’s office, discussing the retrofit aboard the _Behemoth,_ a lifetime and a world away. “Give me a hand with it?”

There is no way in hell Naomi could need help fixing a comm relay. Her hands are magic to anything she touches. The request is an act of charity then, and the gratitude has never tasted more bitter in Drummer’s mouth.

The need to have something to do finally wins out against Drummer’s instinct to refuse the gesture. “Sure,” she says, and if the answer comes out a little too quickly, Naomi does not mention it. She turns for the door and Drummer watches the graceful movements of her shoulders as she follows Naomi into the narrow passageway and down the ladder to the lower deck.

The silence of the filters is not the only difference between the _Roci_ and an average Belter transport. The air itself has a strange, unfamiliar feel, like a new compound of chemicals. It stings Drummer’s nostrils in an assault of purifiers and cleaning fluids. But the lighting is the kind of cool blue which reminds her of the maintenance shafts back on the _Behemoth_ , and when Naomi hands her a pair of pliers and they get to work, Drummer could almost believe they are back there, retrofitting that ship for a future it would never quite suit.

After thirty minutes of bending over the comm relay, a painful throb starts to burn through her back. She leans against the bulkhead and Naomi throws her a sharp look, which she pointedly ignores as she stretches out the kinks in her neck. This angle gives her a view towards the cargo bay and the tiny pinpricks of stars beyond.

There was an observation deck on the _Behemoth,_ a holdover from its days as the _Nauvoo,_ waiting in slumber for a journey to a sun it would never see. Drummer had the observation window sealed shut, of course. No sense in having such an obvious vulnerability on a war ship. But now and then she would toy with the idea of asking Naomi to have a drink with her on that deck. Naomi is beautiful in the starlight.

Naomi’s hand brushes hers as she reaches to take the pliers. Their eyes meet. Is she remembering the same moments? Does she think of Drummer sometimes, when she goes over ship schematics, when she drinks rotgut Ceres vodka, when she lies in her bunk?

Naomi turns back to her work, and Drummer decides she does not want to know the answer.

They fall into a silence which is only a shade away from comfortable. Work is an easy common ground. Naomi pushes the relays back in place and puts the tools back in her box, straightening up to standing with a dancer’s grace. “Want to grab a coffee? Jim and I sometimes play a round of cards after our shift. Could use a third player.”

Drummer feigns interest in the nearest side panel. The ache has reached her shoulders now. “Not one for cards,” she grits out between her teeth.

It’s such an obvious lie, Drummer’s cheeks warm with embarrassment. Naomi shakes her head, lips pursed. “Suit yourself.”

* * *

The days drag on in an endless cycle of empty hours. She fills them with workouts, with the repair jobs Naomi offers her, with restless sleep. On the second day she joins the crew in the galley for a meal and spends the entire time scowling at her plate. The Martian food tastes like plastic. Apparently Martians are allergic to flavour as well as humour.

Word of Drummer’s departure from Medina Station has obviously spread through the OPA. She has offers and entreaties from some faction leaders. Others call her a sell-out, traitor, _welwala._ She isn’t even sure if she blames them.

Dawes sends her a five minute long audio message, which she promptly deletes. The leader of Matar Kubileya offers Drummer a lieutenant position in their fleet, and Drummer is almost tempted to accept before she deletes that message as well. She is done with taking orders.

Unfortunately, her list of non-partisan allies is increasingly small. Battle lines are being drawn, sides are being chosen. Captains who previously had no allegiance to the OPA suddenly choose to either praise or condemn her. Her ex-girlfriend from Ceres goes out of her way to personally call Drummer a bitch, which, to be fair, Drummer probably deserves.

She deletes another message from a former friend and sets her hand terminal aside. Even her old friends from the docks are bound up in the OPA.

The next message comes when she is lying in her bunk, trying to find a comfortable position which doesn’t send pain through her spine until she’s ready to put her fist through the bulkhead. She ignores the notification at first, but it pings again, annoying and insistent. Cursing under her breath, Drummer grabs her hand terminal, ready to dismiss the notification unread.

The name on her screen makes her pause, her finger hovering over the screen. Severine Gaeta. Her mother’s closest friend. The face swims into Drummer’s memory. Severine had let her stay sometimes after her mother died, let her join in the meagre meals, but Severine had three kids of her own to feed and not enough space for another. Drummer hasn’t thought about her since she first left Ceres on Dawes’ ship, chasing a dream she no longer believed in.

The message, when she decides to open it, is short.

_Camina,_

_It has been strange seeing your face on newscasts these past few months. I’m not sure what to make of everything I hear, but I wanted to tell you how much you look like your mother. I think she would be proud to see you where you are._

Drummer reads the message twice before deleting. Her fingernails dig into her palm.

* * *

“I’m going to buy my own ship.”

Drummer says it as she and Naomi are working on reprogramming some panels on the bridge. Naomi looks up from her work, her face breaking into a grin. “A captain in your own right.” She gives Drummer an approving nudge with her elbow. “It’s a good fit for you. What will you do?”

Drummer lifts her palms in a shrug. “Not sure yet. But it’s better than getting drunk in a cabin on my friend’s ship.”

Naomi’s lips twitch, her lashes flicking over her warm, dark eyes. “You know you’re welcome here as long as you need.”

_Your boyfriend might disagree,_ Drummer wants to say, but she manages to keep her mouth shut. Her jaw clenches with the ache.

“I gave my whole life to the OPA,” she manages instead. “Need to figure out what I can be without it.”

Naomi rests her hand on Drummer’s shoulder; a gentle, comforting weight. “Maybe you could provide an alternative. Offer an option beyond the OPA. People would look to you.”

Drummer’s eyes drift closed for a moment. She folds her arms, tries to square back up into her needle-straight posture. Deepens her breathing until she can face the bridge again. “I never asked for this.”

Naomi’s fingers tighten, her face firm. “And that’s why the Belt needs you.”

Drummer clasps Naomi’s fingers, grounds herself in the only thing which feels familiar on this goddamn ship. The calluses on Naomi’s skin, the length of her lashes, the soft, patient smile.

The way ahead is uncertain, but with Naomi beside her, at least she can appreciate where she is now.


End file.
